


Next Stop

by TheFoolsYouSee



Category: Infinity Train (Cartoon)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Spoilers for infinity train season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-25
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:14:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27716632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFoolsYouSee/pseuds/TheFoolsYouSee
Summary: Spoilers for Infinity Train Season 2After getting her exit, Lake lives with Jesse and his family. Then on a long-distance trip, she has a run-in with her old Prime.AKA Fluffy Times at Casa de Cosay.
Relationships: Jesse Cosay/Lake | Mirror Tulip
Comments: 19
Kudos: 120





	1. Chapter 1

Lake had stood in the hall while Jesse had spoken to his parents in the living room. He’d not made any attempt to lie – Lake wasn’t convinced he even knew _how_ to lie. Instead he’d told the whole story of the train, of the numbers, shapeshifting deer, needy wind-blowing clouds, relentless mirror-police, cults of rampaging children and finally beating the system to bring Lake back with him, all with his breathless enthusiasm. The two adults hadn’t believed him, obviously, but they’d also kept giving furtive glances through the doorway at the girl made entirely of chrome. She’d stayed where they could see her, leaning against the wall with her arms folded, a silent, unwavering piece of evidence to back up his story. Occasionally she’d let her eyes wander over to where Nate was sat on the stairs, openly staring at her through the bannisters. The young boy’s intense gaze had made Lake itchy, and she’d hoped she wouldn’t have to endure this kind of attention wherever she went from now on.

Her presence had seemed to lever the Cosay parents’ minds open enough for them to accept the broad message of what Jesse was telling them – he hadn’t gone away on purpose, he wasn’t in trouble with anyone, and the chrome girl was his friend and had nowhere else to go. Lake knew she was perfectly capable of going out and surviving on her own, and things would probably be simpler that way. But proving that she was her own person hadn’t been the only reason she’d fought so desperately to follow Jesse off the train. So it was with a hint of nervousness in her belly that she followed him into his room.

There was a bed with neatly made covers, a desk that held a PC tower and monitor along with a scattering of various keepsakes, and a wardrobe that had drawers set into the bottom. But Lake’s attention was immediately captured by the _hundreds_ of photos that were plastered over every inch of wall space. Each of them had Jesse with someone, or a group of someones, smiling broadly or pulling some other face that signified having a fun time.

Jesse jumped into the desk chair, his momentum rolling it across the floor. ‘Welcome to Casa de Jesse!’ he said, spreading his arms out to gesture to the room as his chair slowly spun. ‘A subsidiary of Casa de Cosay. Oh man, I’ve missed you room! Did ya miss me too?’

‘Yeah, I bet it missed you contaminating it with snack crumbs and fart smell,’ Lake smirked.

‘Hey!’ Jesse put a hand to his chest with mock-offence. ‘I keep a _very_ tidy room. I’m a dream occupant, or at least I never had any complaints from any of the cars we were in. Except for the Complaints Car, but even then I think it secretly liked me.’

‘Uh-huh,’ Lake nodded as she peered at a couple of the photos on a nearby patch of wall. ‘And all these people, they all like you too? Is that why you have them up here, to remind yourself how many people like you?’

Jesse’s cheeks went a little pink, and he hurried over to scrabble at the photos Lake was looking at, pulling them off the wall.

‘You know what? I don’t think I need these any more,’ he said with an awkward chuckle. ‘I’ll put something else up. Oh! I can print off all those photos of Alan Dracula! He couldn’t come with us, but we can still see his-’

Jesse faltered as his hand instinctively went to his pocket for his cellphone, and Lake felt a pang of guilt as she remembered smashing it to the ground and dousing the remains with spray paint.

‘Doesn’t matter!’ Jesse smiled. ‘We’ll picture his face every night before we go to sleep.’ He put the fore- and middle-fingers of one hand together, kissed them, and held them up in a salute. Lake stepped over to him and did the same.

‘So long Alan Dracula,’ she said. ‘You were literally everything to us. At one point or another.’

They both laughed as they lowered their hands, and then Jesse went to flop down face-down on the bed.

‘ _Soft mattress…_ ’ his muffled voice came through the covers. ‘ _So… not-groundy_.’

Lake went over to sit on the corner of the bed, but it gave an ominous creak under the weight of her metal body and she quickly stood up again.

‘Oh.’ Jesse raised his head and glanced around the room. He jumped up and pulled a tall wooden stool out from a corner, which looked sturdier than the more flexible office chair. ‘Here,’ he offered. ‘Only the finest seat for my honoured guest.’

Lake gave a short bow before sitting on the stool, gripping its front with her hands and dangling her legs over the sides. She glanced down and lifted her left hand, turning it over; the metal handcuffs which had swung from them not long ago were now gone, somehow pulled back when Agent Sieve had tried to yank her dissipating body back through the train’s exit. She put a hand to her wrist, remembering how she’d gotten rid of the weight that had hung from it. How she’d-

She shook her head, banishing the violent memory. It was over now. It was all over.

‘So, what do you wanna do now?’ Jesse asked, sitting back down on the bed. ‘Are you gonna go to school?’

Lake shrugged. ‘I dunno. I’ve not thought about it.’

Jesse nodded and glanced out of the window. The sun had finished setting before they’d even come into the house from the lake, and it was now fully dark outside.

‘I guess we can put the spare mattress in Mom’s office,’ he said.

‘O-Oh, yeah.’ Lake glanced down at the spot on the floor next to Jesse’s bed where she’d already been planning to curl up. Each night on the train the three of them had camped close by each night, and the idea of not having anyone nearby as she slept suddenly felt very lonely. Even when she’d roamed the train on her own before meeting Jesse, it had been hard to get used to sleeping without Tulip’s presence.

‘You okay?’

Lake looked up at her friend’s concerned face. She realised she’d been staring sullenly at the floor, and put on a smile.

‘Yeah, I feel great!’ she grinned, turning her eyes back to the photos on the wall. ‘So which of these are the Eraser Kids?’

* * *

The metal girl lay back on the mattress that had been laid on the floor of the office. It had been dressed up nicely with sheets and pillows, but the springs still creaked underneath her, the metallic sound an echo of her every movement. Now that she was alone with nothing to be running from or towards for the first time in so long, worried thoughts finally caught up with her and began to buzz about her brain. _Would_ she go to school? Agent Mace had mocked the idea, and the Apex cult had been a reminder of how outsiders could be treated when there was a group identity to protect. The potential problems were starting to mount – at least on the train, Lake had been no more of an oddity than anyone else she came across. She hadn’t thought ahead as far as the practicalities of living in the Prime world, all she’d thought about was getting off the train. All she’d thought about was being with-

‘ _Hey Lake?’_

She sat up, trying to pinpoint the source of the tinny voice.

‘ _Jesse to Lake, are you receiving? Over.’_

She spotted a blinking red light and squinted through the dark at it. Then with a smile, she crawled over the mattress, the springs still squeaking under her movement, and reached out to grab the small toy radio from the desk.

‘Receiving you loud and clear,’ she said quietly into the speaker, holding down the button on the side. ‘What’s your sitch? Over.’

* * *

Stephan and Whittney Cosay were both lying awake, the vapours of the nerves they’d been feeling for weeks still lingering in their bodies. Their relief at having Jesse back was stifled by the uncertainty that still surrounded his disappearance; the metallic girl was stopping them from fully dismissing his impossible story, leaving them in a limbo. She had seemed nice enough, a little quiet but apparently from the awkwardness of being around unfamiliar adults rather than from standoffishness. They had seen before how Jesse could get pulled into the wrong crowd, but any attempt at digging into where she came from would mean facing the dissonance that they'd both pushed to a corner of their brains.

Then they started to hear the pair of low voices coming from separate rooms in the house. They listened to the muffled, whispered laughter for a short while, and then they shared a smile. Stephan reached over to turn on the white noise machine on the bedside table and they both rolled over to go to sleep. Wherever he’d been, Jesse seemed to have finally found someone who was as eager to be his friend as he was to be theirs.

* * *

Mr and Mrs Cosay had accommodated their new guest as best they could but otherwise avoided the subject of her hard, shiny skin. Lake remembered the reason Jesse had gotten on the train in the first place, and was beginning to see where his preoccupation with getting along smoothly with others came from. Nate, however, was far more open with his curiosity, although Jesse's younger brother was less interested in where she'd come from as to what she could do with her hard skin and density. She'd comply with his requests to crush his toys flat beneath her feet and bounce laser-pointers off her skin, surprising herself at her own patience with the young boy. It helped that he'd react ecstatically every time she did as he asked, but she also found that the longer she was living with the Cosays the more she felt the inner tension she’d been holding slip away. There was no danger, no-one pursuing her and no goal she was desperately chasing. Now she could just live.

And as it turned out, being out in public wasn’t as eventful as Lake had feared. She would get plenty of stares as she walked down the street, but the fact that she wasn’t a known, established kind of ‘different’ seemed to stop people from being able to react before she’d already passed them. And anyone she interacted with for any longer would seem to come up with an justification of their own in their head for the metallic noises she made as she interacted with the world around her. Something so blatantly impossible _must_ have a reasonable explanation, and with Jesse easily chatting and joking with her to demonstrate that everything was normal, it would appear rude or stupid to question her reflective skin. Lake had used to think of being constantly at someone’s side as trapping, restrictive. But now it felt freeing – Jesse was her gateway out into the world, enabling her to go anywhere. And even without the camouflage of his happy charm, she still felt the same pull to be near him as she had after he'd left the train the first time.

* * *

Lake awoke on the couch, blearily opening her eyes and squinting at the glow of the TV. The main menu of the movie they’d been watching was on the screen, its light blaring out at them across the dark of the living room. Lake shifted her head against the cushion she was lying on – but then she realised the cushion was warm. And slowly rising up and down.

As the rest of her body awoke, she registered the sound of light snoring coming from above her head and rapidly connected the dots - she didn’t _remember_ leaning against Jesse, in the way that no-one ever remembers the moments right before falling asleep. But here she was, her head against his chest, his arm loosely draped over her shoulder.

Very slowly, she started to lift her head and move herself away. But the movement triggered Jesse’s arm to lower around her torso to pull her back, and he sleepily brought his other arm around to hug her close with a satisfied sigh.

Lake felt a dopey smile spread across her face at the unconscious affection, and she leant her head back against his chest, closing her eyes again. If she’d kept them open, she might have spotted the reflection in her own arm of Jesse quickly opening one eye to glance down at her before winking it shut with a smile.

* * *

The sunsets started to come earlier, and the air grew chillier than it had been. The two teenagers were sat out on the bank of the lake, picking at the grass. They were both starting to shiver, but neither of them made any moves to leave; this spot had become theirs ever since they’d finally made their way through the train’s exit together and come out here. The golden light of the dipping sun was streaming over the water, just as it had that day, and something was making them want to enjoy the echo of that moment.

‘I wonder what AD would make of our grass,’ Jesse said, sprinkling his handful of green shavings back down onto the ground. ‘Only he’d know if it tasted any different to train grass. I really should have taken the opportunity while I was there.'

‘What, to eat grass?’

‘Yeah! For science!’

‘The only thing you’d be demonstrating is the science of how to give yourself a stomach ache.’

‘I dunno.’ Jesse looked out at the water wistfully. ‘It always looked so _good_ when Alan Dracula was eating it.’

Lake shook her head with a laugh. ‘ _Such_ a dumb name…’

‘Oh really?’

Lake looked up at the boy, frowning at his tone. ‘What?’

‘Nothing.’ Jesse looked down to pick more blades of grass with a small smile. ‘Just coming from Miss-Name-Myself-After-Literally-The-First-Thing-I-See-Off-The-Train.’

Lake gave an offended scoff and turned around to sit facing away from him, sulking pointedly.

‘Oh no, you don’t like me now!’ Jesse groan-laughed.

‘No, I don’t,’ Lake confirmed, sticking her nose in the air exaggeratedly.

Jesse fell onto his back, laying his head down next to her. ‘After all that personal growth and development, I’m right back to where I started!’ he cried, reaching a hand up into the air dramatically. ‘I _must_ have you like me or I shall simply die!’

‘Too bad.’ Lake turned her face away from him again. ‘Go and find someone else with a cooler name.’ She heard him laughing but still didn’t look over, determined to win their playful spat, and kept her pose until he had sat up again.

‘I’m sorry,’ Jesse said, more gently now. ‘I really like your name… and I really like you.’

Lake couldn’t stop her pout from spreading into a stupid grin. _Okay_ , she thought. _Here we go then._ She looked over at the boy’s shy smile, and quickly had to lower her eyes to the ground again.

‘I really like _you_ ,’ she returned.

‘I mean… more than normal,’ Jesse clarified.

‘Yeah, that’s what I mean too,’ Lake nodded.

They met each other’s gaze, and exchanged awkward smiles and blushes. Then Jesse scooted himself closer to Lake, and she felt something pound inside her chest, vibrating all through the metal of her body. Their smiles turned to half-eyed expressions of anticipation, and they both leaned their faces toward each other’s.

Then the pair paused, waiting for some bizarre event to interrupt them as they’d been conditioned to expect. But no interruption came, no life-or-death peril, no eccentrically charming little creatures, not even an Alan Dracula. There was nothing between them now but the clouds of breath coming from their mouths.

Lake brought her lips across the final couple of inches and kissed Jesse. It was awkward and stuttering, and the boy’s breath still tasted like the cheese puffs he’d been eating earlier. But the sensation still made a fuzz cover Lake’s brain, a blanket under which her nerves sizzled out. After a long moment, a shiver eventually made her pull back.

‘Ah! _Ah!_ ’ Jesse cried in pain and his mouth followed hers, not parting from it. Lake felt a surge of panic as she realised what had happened – his warm, wet lips had become stuck to her cold metal ones.

‘Lake I’n thtuck!’

‘Yuh Dessy, I knuh!’

‘Ott do ‘ee do?’

Lake shrugged helplessly. ‘I geth thith ith our lithe nah.’

‘ _UHH?!’_

Lake began to feel the accumulating drool from Jesse’s mouth drip against hers and had to resist the urge to pull away further.

‘Reethe!’

‘Uh?’

‘ _Reethe!’_ Lake breathed a couple of short outward breaths into Jesse’s mouth demonstratively.

‘Oh, ‘ite.’ Jesse let out a few longer breaths, and Lake could feel the clamminess of condensation spread across her face. She could also feel the tickle of the incoming breaths against her throat and suppressed a cough with all her might, unable to close her own mouth without forcing Jesse’s closed too. Gradually the moisture and heat began to let the boy’s lips give way, and they peeled off of hers bit by bit. Lake stayed as still as she could until Jesse had removed himself with a final tiny splat of skin, and then they both frantically spluttered and coughed.

‘ _Eww,_ ’ Lake frantically rubbed her itchy mouth with her finger even as she laughed. ‘I’ve got _lip flakes_ stuck to me!’

‘That was the worst kiss anyone has ever done,’ Jesse giggled.

‘I know, I’m so proud of us,’ Lake grinned crookedly.

After they’d both stopped laughing, the cold of what was now night finally forced them to get to their feet and head back to the house.

‘I’m gonna start wearing chapstick,’ Jesse said, hooking his arm around Lake’s waist.

‘Yeah,’ Lake said as she wound her own arm around him, mirroring his gesture. ‘Chapstick forever.’


	2. Chapter 2

Every year the Cosays flew across the country for a big family reunion, and Lake had felt an awkward warmth when they’d made it clear that they fully expected her to join them. Jesse had assured her she’d be one of a number of significant others at the gathering, and whilst pleased at being called significant, the metal girl felt a twinge of anxiety for the moment when the rest of the clan saw just how ‘other’ she really was. The idea of going through airport security had presented another problem until Jesse had volunteered another option, although the pair had to make some firm promises to Mr and Mrs Cosay to look after each other. When they’d finally been convinced, the family got one of their plane tickets refunded, and when the time came the two teenagers headed to the station to board their alternative form of transportation.

‘Alright!’ Jesse spread out their collection of items across the table between them. ‘We’ve got snacks, we’ve got games, we’ve got pre-downloaded movies. I vote we start with the snacks.’

Lake shook her head. ‘If you eat them all now you’ll be hyper, and then you’ll be cranky.’

Jesse’s face fell a little, but he compliantly scooped the assortment of candy and bags of chips back into his bag. ‘Alright, we’ll ration them,’ he said. But he left one packet out on the table and opened it, offering it to the girl sat opposite him.

Lake grinned, reached out toward the bag of her favourite sour gummies and took one. After taking one for himself, Jesse left the open packet in the middle of the table between them and started putting together the pieces of the little Connect 4 game they’d bought at the station shop. But the small structure collapsed as the whole carriage lurched forward slightly and began to make its way down the track.

Jesse glanced up from the table and saw Lake looking out of the window. ‘You _sure_ you’re okay?’ he asked.

‘Yeah,’ Lake gave him a smile. ‘It’s a bit weird, but it’s only a train.’

The time passed quickly with competitive rounds of Connect 4 and chatter about the upcoming family games. Lake noticed the people sat nearby glance over at her a couple of times, frowning at her shiny, reflective skin. She felt a small tension as she realised she couldn’t just walk past them like she could with the strangers who would stare at her on the street. But as usual Jesse’s relaxed behaviour around her seemed to convince everyone that whatever was going on must be perfectly normal, and nobody bothered them.

The pair had now lapsed into a comfortable silence, and Lake was tapping away at the phone that Jesse had got her for what he had arbitrarily decided was her birthday.

‘Hey Lake?’

‘Mmm?’

‘You know… Tulip?’

Lake raised her eyes to glance at him. ‘Yeah?’ she asked cautiously.

‘Does she have red hair?’

Lake realised that Jesse was looking past her down the carriage and felt suddenly tense. She slowly lifted a hand, angling it to try and see the reflection of the seats behind her. When she couldn’t see the familiar orange hue she was looking for, she risked turning her head.

A girl with a fleshy-pink face the exact double of her own was sat a few rows back, facing away from them in a seat that had been empty in the reflection of Lake’s hand.

The chrome girl quickly turned around again. _Of course_ _she wouldn’t show up in a reflection_ , Lake thought to herself. _Not while I’m HERE._

‘You alright?’ Jesse asked, and from the concern in his eyes Lake could tell she didn’t look it. Her fingers started to fidget and she picked up an empty candy wrapper to fiddle with. Jesse was silent for a little while, watching her fold the wrapper up small and tight.

‘Do you want to change cars?’ he asked quietly.

Lake hesitated for a moment, but then nodded. They quietly gathered their things and left their seats, heading away from Tulip towards the door to the next carriage. The door opened and they stepped aside to let the oncoming old lady pass them. But then the train lurched as it turned a corner on the track, and Lake felt herself fall towards the other passenger. She quickly lifted her arm to catch herself against the railing of the luggage compartment opposite, and her arm hit the bar with a loud clang.

‘Sorry,’ she muttered to the surprised woman. She hurried after Jesse, glancing back as she passed through the door.

Tulip had turned her head, and their eyes met. Lake quickly whipped her head back around and left the carriage.

* * *

They had managed to find a free table in the next car and Lake was now leaning back in her seat with her arms folded, tapping her leg agitatedly. Jesse had tried to set up another game of Connect 4, but it now lay half-finished and forgotten between them.

‘I thought you said things ended okay between you two,’ Jesse said eventually.

Lake sighed. ‘Yeah, they did. She’s the one who got me into the Prime world.’

‘So what is it?’

Lake remained silent for a few seconds before replying, keeping her eyes fixed on the table. ‘When I left her, I was so excited to be free, to finally become my own person. And I now I have, so going back to being face to face with her again…’ She trailed off. She didn’t know exactly _what_ that experience would be like, but she knew she wouldn’t like it.

Jesse reached over and took her hand, and Lake meshed her cold fingers into his warm ones, feeling the boy thoughtfully rub his thumb over her metal skin.

‘I still worry about what other people think,’ he began. ‘And sometimes I lie awake remembering awkward moments and imagining what I could have said or done different. You might not ever run into Tulip again, and as someone who knows, I think if you don’t talk to her now you might spend the rest of your life wondering about it.’

Lake continued holding Jesse’s hand across the table for a bit. Then she exhaled and stood up from her seat. As she passed Jesse she leaned down to give him a quick kiss before she continued on back through the door to the other carriage.

As soon as she came back in she saw Tulip’s bright orange ponytail from across the car. Her old Prime was facing away from her again, and Lake quickly but quietly made her way towards her. The seat behind the other girl was faced in the opposite direction, and Lake sat in it so that they were back-to-back.

‘Hey, Tulip.’

She felt the girl behind her turn her head in surprise, but Lake didn’t look round. After a couple of seconds Tulip turned away again, seemingly understanding the silent request for them to remain where they were.

‘Hey,’ Tulip replied.

‘I’m sorry about before,’ Lake said. ‘I guess I got a bit… scared.’ She rolled her eyes at herself, already feeling overcome with awkwardness.

‘It’s okay,’ Tulip said, and Lake heard the rustle of hair as the other girl nodded. ‘You got off the train then? That’s cool.’

‘Yeah, Jesse helped me. He’s, uh… he’s my boyfriend.’

‘Oh. Was that the guy with the jacket back there?’

‘That’s right.’

‘He looks nice.’

‘Yeah, he’s a real goofball.’ Lake chuckled to herself, and felt the tension seep away a little. ‘How are your mom and dad?’

‘They’re good. Dad comes over for dinner sometimes.’

‘That’s nice.’ Lake started tapping her leg again. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘Before I managed to get off the train I thought I might be stuck there forever. And now I realise how bad it was that I almost got you stuck in the Chrome Car forever so… I’m sorry.’

There was a moment of silence. Lake slumped down in her seat, cringing her eyes shut and letting her arm dangle down loosely by her side.

Then she felt the back of Tulip’s hand against hers.

‘Thanks,’ the other girl said quietly.

The way their hands were mirroring each other made Lake start to feel itchy, so she twined her fingers through Tulip’s slightly. They sat there for a little while, and to her surprise Lake realised that the presence of the girl she had grown up with was comforting.

‘While you were on the train, did you see Atticus or One-One?’ Tulip asked.

‘Not Atticus,’ Lake replied. ‘But One-One is… well, he’s the same as ever.’ She heard Tulip chuckle, and pushed down her own feelings of frustration towards the small robot. ‘Where are you headed to?’

‘JarCon. Dad’s nearby for work, so I’m meeting him there and showing him all the cool coding stuff.’

‘Oh sure, _cool_ coding,’ Lake echoed sarcastically, and they both laughed.

‘Hey,’ Tulip asked, ‘I’ve noticed I don’t have a reflection now, but I still show up in pictures and videos. Is that different?’

‘Yeah,’ Lake nodded. ‘They’re another department.’

‘They’re _WHAT?_ ’

The carriage rolled to a stop, and Lake glanced out of the window to see that they’d arrived at a station.

‘Oh,’ Tulip said. ‘This is my stop.’

‘Oh, okay.’ Lake was surprised again to feel a pang of sadness as she watched the girl behind her stand from the corner of her eye. But she kept her head down as the redhead hesitated at her side.

‘Look me up online,’ Tulip said.

‘Yeah, I will,’ Lake promised. But she only glanced up again once the other girl had started walking away, thinking to herself how strange it was to see Tulip from behind.

* * *

The train had started moving again by the time Lake returned to Jesse. She sat in the seat next to him and leant her head against his shoulder, wrapping one arm around his torso. Jesse smiled and lifted his own arm to rest around her shoulders.

‘Thanks,’ she said.

After a few seconds, Lake lowered her head to rest against Jesse's chest, and pulled the open flap of his jacket over her face.

‘ _Mm mmm mm_ ,’ she mumbled into the fabric.

‘What?’

Lake sighed, still not removing the jacket-flap from her face. ‘ _Mm mmm mm,_ ’ she repeated, more insistently.

‘…Oh.’ Jesse said with realisation.

Lake lowered the material from her face, her chrome cheeks blushing a dark blue. ‘Don’t make a big deal about it,’ she huffed.

Jesse grinned, and kissed her scalp in the familiar spot that was clear of the spiky-sharp needles that remained of her hair.

‘I love you too,’ he whispered, and Lake tightened her grip on the fabric of his jacket. They sat together, holding each other, as the train went on.


End file.
